Futuríveis

'I expect that the savings rate will end up at the end of this recession higher than it was going into it,' said Jonathan A. Parker, a finance professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. 'It's hard to see how it wouldn't.'Sustained increases in household saving would cause a difficult period of restructuring for the American economy, which has become increasingly driven by consumer spending. Such spending makes up about 70 percent of the nation's gross domestic product.Add the decline in consumer spending to the planned expiration of government stimulus spending, and a painful readjustment in demand for goods and services could occur, economists say. The effect would be felt here and abroad, as many developing economies also depend on America's big-spending ways.